Forgotten How To Fly..!

With domestic flights
scheduled to start on Monday, what airline officials, and their Call Centre
employees are learning is, most people have forgotten how to fly, “What do I
carry with me?” asked a former frequent flyer.

“Your baggage sir!” said
the call center employee pleasantly.

“That’s a plane load of
baggage I’ve accumulated these past two months!” said the frequent flyer.
“There’s this feeling of inadequacy because I wasn’t much of a help indoors!
Insecurity, as my wife and daughters had huge whispering sessions, without
including me! Vulnerability, as I found that suddenly I was thought of as the
next victim because of my age! Which of this baggage can I bring along?”

“What I meant sir, is essential
baggage for traveling!”

“Ah essential! That leaves
me even more confused! The government mentioned essential goods only are
available in my area, and I found that essential did not mean non-veg, but only
my neighbour’s vegetables. It did not mean my wine with my weekend meal, but
included sweet mangoes, that my maid loved eating! What essential luggage do
you now mean? And how much am I allowed?”

“Sir, you can carry 15 kg
checked in baggage and 7 kilos of hand…”

“Hey wait, don’t you think
that’s a bit too much? I saw Ramu, my plumber walking back to his village, with
just ten kilos of luggage, which was his whole life’s belongings! Shankar my
carpenter carrying his mother as luggage on the road?”

“Sir, I think you have got
it wrong, but never mind! Sir, please remember this is a contact free airport!
Nobody will make human contact with you!”

“Contact free? But that is
hard to believe. We had to make bribe contact with the coroner, to get our
neighbour’s Covid free body out! My vegetable vendor, had to make commodity
contact with the policeman and give them his best brinjals, onions and tomatoes
to keep his pavement stall open! How, then will your airport be contact free,
when contact has become a desi Covid culture now, to get what you want?”

“Sir, please bring your ID
along!”

“ID? You want me to carry
my ID when I myself don’t know who I am? I don’t know whether I am a free man
in a free country anymore, or living in China, with anyone in uniform, having
the right to beat me at any time for some rule made overnight! Or whether I
have the right to say what I feel anymore before being marched off to jail? I
do not know my identity anymore! What ID?”

“Sir, we are rejecting your
application. We don’t think you are a fit passenger to fly!”

“What? Rejecting me? Then
how do you expect me to travel to my hometown?”

“Most of the nation’s
rejected are walking home sir. You can join them, goodbye..!”